Mortal Kombat: Armageddon

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is a game that delivers on quantity but falters heavily on quality, particularly when it comes to the storyline and character handling. No other game in the Mortal Kombat series matches Armageddon's massive roster, featuring every character from the franchise up to that point. It's an impressive feat that undeniably makes the game a fan favorite when it comes to sheer variety. However, this is where the praise ends for many, as the game's lore, stories, and character development feel like a massive step back, especially after the brilliant Mortal Kombat: Deception.

The narrative in Armageddon is nothing short of chaotic. After releasing what many consider the best Mortal Kombat game in history, Deception, Armageddon comes along with a story that seems disjointed and, in many cases, nonsensical. The lore feels rushed, and several characters are thrown into situations that simply don't fit their established arcs. One of the biggest disappointments is how Armageddon treats Kira, a character who had a promising debut in Deception. In Armageddon, she is handled in the worst possible way, becoming a shadow of her former self. Her moveset is altered and worsened, making her fighting style less enjoyable and much less unique.

What's even more baffling is Kira's role-or lack thereof-in the Konquest mode. She doesn't even get to fight, leaving Kobra, who is clearly a less skilled fighter, to handle Taven alone. How does that make sense? Kira had so much more potential, but her involvement is cut short in favor of lesser characters. This disconnect extends to her ending, which feels completely out of place. Kira's fate in her own ending is lackluster, while Kobra's ending oddly gives her a better outcome. It's frustrating when you compare this to Deception, where the Black Dragon characters like Kobra, Kabal, and Kira all had endings that aligned perfectly with each other and felt coherent.

The fatality system in Armageddon is another sore point. The custom fatalities, while novel, are a step down from the brutal, creative finishers Mortal Kombat fans have come to expect. It feels like the developers prioritized quantity over quality here, and it shows.

On a positive note, Armageddon introduced features like the Kreate-A-Fighter mode, which is still one of the best customization tools the series has ever seen. But no amount of customization can save the lore from being an absolute mess.

In conclusion, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon is a game that excels in terms of roster size and features but fails miserably when it comes to the story and character treatment. Kira, in particular, suffers the most, becoming a watered-down version of herself with an unfulfilling arc. After the success of Deception, it's hard not to wonder how this game's lore turned out so disastrously. The reset of the timeline, while necessary after the mess Armageddon made, doesn't erase the frustration fans felt when this game was released.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon is supposed to be the finial installment of the Mortal Kombat series for the Xbox and Playstation 2 consoles. It is supposed to end the franchise with a mighty bang, but ends up being nothing more than a weak whimper.

Since this is supposed to be the swan song for this iteration of the series, they have thrown in nearly every character that has ever been in a Mortal Kombat game which gives you more than sixty characters to play with. On top of that, you can even create custom characters.

The graphics and character models are good for the aging Xbox platform. The stage design is acceptable, but they are not nearly as engaging as those presented the previous games. They are decent, they work, but they are nothing to get excited. Everything seems to be a bit overly dark and gloomy to me, and I can't help but wonder if this has been done to hide limitations in the game engine. The sound is adequate, nothing special, or memorable.

The kombat game play works well though. It hasn't changed much from the previous titles. The biggest difference I noted is that you now have two fighting styles instead of three. I assumed this was done to accommodate the huge roster of playable characters. This game also marks the return of aerial attacks which have not be been present in the series for at least the last two games.

Mortal Kombat: Armageddon has multiple play modes. There is the traditional arcade mode, versus mode, online mode, Konquest adventure mode, and Motor Kombat. In the traditional arcade mode you fight a series of progressively harder opponents until you reach the boss character. The versus mode lets you play against your friends on a stage of your choosing. The online mode lets you compete against other players worldwide. The Motor Kombat is basically a dumbed down version Mario Kart with a dash of Mortal Kombat violence thrown in; it's entertaining, but it's not the real meat of the game.

By far, what I found to be the biggest disappointment of the game is what they did to the Konquest mode. In the previous title, Mortal Kombat Deception, Konquest mode was a full blown adventure game. You could of almost called it 'The Kombat RPG'. It was a vast and fully fleshed out game, though it lacked any real ending, it was very entertaining and enjoyable. I spent a lot of time playing it.

I beat the Konquest mode in Mortal Kombat Armageddon in two sittings. And the only reason it was two sittings instead of one was because I had to get up to use the bathroom once.

The Konquest mode in this title was basically watered down version of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks, without the in depth character progression, freedom to explore, or story scope. It amounts to little more than a uninteresting imitation of one great games, and an unworthy successor to another.

Mortal Kombat Armageddon is a decent game. It is disappointing when compared to other recent Mortal Kombat games like Mortal Kombat Deception and Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks. It you are a fan of the Mortal Kombat universe, it will undoubtedly tickle to get to play will of the characters presented. If you are not a Mortal Kombat fan, I would at least suggest you rent the game and try it out. It does have it's enjoyable moments.

Knot every kombat game is going to be a killer knock out, but at least here you have a klue as to what is koming and what to expect.

"Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" is probably the greatest "Mortal Kombat" fighting game - ever. I reserved a copy back in March and received it the first day - I paid the extra 10 dollars for the Premium Edition, which has the extra DVD with bonus content.

With this latest entry, it is a culmination of all "Mortal Kombat" games to this day, with a slight whiff of "Mortal Kombat Trilogy" and "Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3," the latter which is one of many extra add-ons included with the Premium Edition. As envisioned by ko-kreators Ed Boon and John Tobias and unleashed on the general public in 1992, "Mortal Kombat" revolutionized martial arts fighting on video game consoles. Fans of the game were able to take "Mortal Kombat" in a direction far from what Boon and Tobias envisioned.

In that first entry, we were introduced to the following: Shaolin monk Liu Kang, movie star Johnny Cage, Special Forces Agent Sonya Blade, ninja specter Scorpion (my personal favorite fighter), cryo-mancer Sub-Zero, lightning god Raiden, terrorist Kano, the four-armed Goro, Reptile, and shape-shifting sorcerer Shang Tsung.

While praised by critics for its realistic martial arts and innovative storyline, it was embraced by fans for its gratuitous bloodshed and violence; simultaneously, Jack Thompson and most moral-minded politicians condemned it. It's been followed by several spin-offs, two movies (Paul W.S. Anderson directed the first 1995 film) and fans have been quick to denounce its horrible sequel.

With "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon," nothing's changed. The game features a revamped fighting engine, with 60+ characters who are masters of one fighting style and one weapon style. Also, there's the addition of ground kombat; if you don't like things on the ground, you can take it to the sky in air kombat, and dismember your opponent that way. We also have two brand-new characters (that can only be unlocked through the Konquest mode) and Motor Kombat, a "Mario Cart"-style racing side-project.

Then, there are the healthy, long-awaited additions of kreate-a-fighter and kreate-a-fatality. In kreate-a-fighter, you can actually customize your own Mortal Kombat character, give him/her their own appearance, fighting styles, weapon style, special moves and biography, if you like. Kreate-a-fatality - it is just what it sounds like - you can dismember your opponent when the screen says, "Finish him/her" in any number of grisly fashions.

Objections? Of course. While this game is a significant improvement over past entries such as "Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance" and "Mortal Kombat: Deception," it's definitely not short of its problems. I have some great issues with how some fighters have different fighting styles or weapons than they have in past games. While the kreators suggest it's only to adopt new strategies, it can be very trying for those who have been accustomed to a certain character.

With the added features of kreate-a-fighter and kreate-a-fatality, some things are lacking or have been shorted completely. In kreate-a-fighter, you can only kreate one fighter per profile. Of course, if you want to take up memory card space, you can have up to eight profiles, which means eight kreated fighters. In kreate-a-fatality, you can still brutalize your opponent, which is cool, but the fatalities that we have come to love from our favorite characters have been completely removed. (What was Ed Boon thinking?)

The Konquest story mode, while quite linear and short, is also quite demanding and requires some patience to master. It's still interesting, and has been significantly refurbished since "Deadly Alliance" and "Deception" (while also staying in tune with last year's popular spin-off "Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks"), and a lot of thought went into the mythology, but it can be tedious especially when you don't have a proper strategy guide at your disposal. And because it's linear, you cannot backtrack if you miss something (i.e., like the Konquest Relics) and this is especially nerve-wracking because you have to continue on, finish Konquest mode, and play through the game again to get that forgotten item (I had to do it twice). And lastly, you sort of get a cheap reward for completing the game in either Konquest or arcade.

Other than these short little squabbles, "Mortal Kombat: Armageddon" is a proper conclusion to "Mortal Kombat" on this generation of consoles. Only time will tell what the kreators have in store for us on Playstation 3.

9/10

This is the greatest Mortal Kombat Game ever in my opinion, not only does it include all of the Mortal Kombat Characters which you can play, but most of all, you now get to create your very own Characters as well as get to make their own biographies for them which you can't do in other games, This also has the greatest Final Boss ever in Blaze, who is True Neutral which fits perfectly for the Final Boss, Motor Kombat is pretty good in itself as well, Konquest is cool too, The Kreate-A-Fatality is uber awesome and the chance to string together fatalities, to me, this is as close to a perfect game, if not perfect you can get, This will be a game to play even many years/decades down the road still, The Storyline is perfect with Everyone fighting to be the one at the top and the grand champion at the end of it all and it's every fighter for themselves, so to me, this is THE Perfect Game, the greatest Mortal Kombat Gmae ever and my Favorite Mortal Kombat game, so this gets a perfect S, Infinite Stars and Infinity/10!

MORTAL KOMBAT Armageddon WINS!

ULTIMATE FATALITY!

After many seasons, the realms are now on the brink of Armageddon(I guess spelling wasn't the last victim). One last tournament will take place, and the winner will end the existence of all things... wait, what? Uh... yeah, as far as I understand, that's the idea. Real incentive, huh? Anyway, the last round will be against Blaze. Also, the Konquest mode has Taven(...I dunno, ask someone who knows about these) awaken and given a quest to gather some gifts his parents left for him and use them to defeat aforementioned fire-being, along with replacing all C's at the beginnings of words with K's. The story is kinda meh, and it's pretty easy to tell that they put it together just to take you through the different areas and have you go up against various of the known warriors. There are 9 levels(Jungle, Airship, Arctic, Temple, Krimson Forest, Mountain, Spire, Fortress, Ruins) at around an hour apiece. It's entertaining(if kinda repetitive... and really unnecessarily frustrating near the end) action-adventure with frequent checkpoint saves keeping you from redoing all that much, going up against groups(sometimes with a picked-up temporary weapon, including a lightsabre(!) that you can do varied attacks with), sometimes knocking them into their death(on a spike, into flames, etc.), dodge traps, control the camera(good thing, cuz you need it a *ton*) and you will sometimes enter a regular match. Once you do it once, you can get a lot of the unlockables(media, outfits, arenas, movies, etc.) with the coins you earned in it, taking some away from that encouragement to replay this. There is also Motor Kombat(think Mario Kart lite... it could have been a lot bigger, really... it's kinda... OK at best) for up to four human players(split-screen), with five places(some have cool stuff you have to avoid), there are ten people(Baraka, Bo' Rai Cho, Cage, Cyrax, Jax, Kitana, Mileena, Raiden, Scorpion(and his special ability, that all of these have, is inferior to something in first Lego Racer(no, really)), Sub-Zero), you can bump into the others to shove them, and you will die bloodily(this is as violent, gory, and somewhat as brutal as it can get away with... enemies can be torn apart, have their heart forcibly removed, heads will be ripped off or turned 180 degrees horizontally, etc.) if you hit a wall hard. You turn the Wii-Mote(that you use the gesturing of to execute unique attacks; you can also use the classic controller or the Gamecube one with this) sideways to use as a steering wheel, like others for the console. Endurance mode kinda speaks for itself... keep going until you can't any longer. And Arcade, of course, and it's relatively short. There are a ton of characters... 60+, indeed. You can also Kreate(*rolling my eyes*) them, well, one per profile(Koded... make it stop, please), I think, and there is a *lot* of customization(not to the rules of this, for some reason) to it, appearance, style, etc. All of them have a mêlée weapon each(or a pair of them... or four, if they have that many arms and thus purchase and require a larger quantity of deodorant), and you can go back and forth between using it and going with martial arts any moment you want to. You can string Fatalities together... it's kinda boring and gets old real fast, because everyone has the same ones. The music is well-done and always fits, some techno and heavy metal, sometimes swift, menacing, etc. You can move in all three dimensions, but you'll mostly accidentally jump or duck, screwing up what you're trying to do. It's nice that there are layers to where you take on the others, and that you can toss a foe to a lower one. Most cut-scenes are in-engine, and even more frequently, they cop out further by just giving you a text description of what is supposed to be going on(the CGI opening is cool, if powerfully overdone, incredibly excessive in what happens and the measure of what happens to or for every of the ones you see in detail in it). The fights are fast and intense, with rather nifty moves and a nice amount of freedom(block, counter, and everything I've already mentioned in this review). I'm going to set myself up for an enormous bit of written punishment and say that frankly, I prefer Tournament of Legends to this(and it doesn't make a huge difference that it came four years later, it's for the same machine), in that it is immeasurably less unfair, and everyone in that is equal. Strong? Slow. Quick? Weak. And a middle ground class. And the motion sensor use in that is greater by an unmentionable rate. It is immersive, as games for the Wii are supposed to be(I mean, if they aren't, you'll want to go for another Next Generation one... they have superior graphics, an area that is passable in this with a few glaring misses). The controls are another aspect where this doesn't measure up to it. Anyway, the tone is dark and bleak, with hellish settings, though there are ones that don't go as emo. I think this is made for those who have stuck with this franchise for a while... I haven't played any of the others(certainly not at length, and usually on PC, and if you've ever had the misfortune of trying something like this with a keyboard, you know my pain), I know nothing of the background, the universe, these guys and gals and... whatever the heck Goro and his ilk are. Also, you'll want to get this for the core portions, not the car aspect and the like, those are pretty phoned in and beaten mercilessly by the competition that focuses on what they do. They presumably merely went for those to have something new to put on the cover. I recommend this to any fan of the series(and to those who love VG's like this), as it is a fun entry if not without its flaws(obvious and hidden alike). 7/10